[Pkg-ime-devel] Re: Bug#283047: scim-uim_0.1.3-1(hppa/unstable): FTBFS: missing build-depends?

[Ming Hua]

Hi everyone,

The scim packages are going fine, and scim-uim just got accepted to the
repository by ftp master.  However, scim-uim now FTBFS on all arches.
The reason looks like a simple missing build-depends, but it is actually
more complicated.  So I am asking the whole list for opinions,
especially those who use scim-uim or scim-m17n themselves.

The details can be see at the BTS (bug #283047):
    http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=283047

The short summary is:  scim-uim build-depends on libuim-dev.  After the
scim-uim packages are prepared, uim packages enabled m17n support and
libuim-dev indirectly depends on libm17n-0 now (through libuim0).
With this new libuim-dev package, the command
    pkg-config --libs "uim >= 0.3.9"
generates "-luim -lm17n" instead of only "-luim" as before.

However, scim-uim doesn't have libm17n-dev as build-depends, but the
configure script happily generates makefile with commands linking to
libm17n.  So the build fails misrably.

This problem can be solved simply by adding libm17n-dev into
build-depends.  However, I have two questions:

1. Is it desirable to have scim-uim access the m17n input methods?  I
know that you can directly use scim-m17n, and if you have scim-uim with
all m17n stuff included, and scim-m17n as well, you'll end up with a lot
of duplicated input methods.  So what do the uim and m17n users prefer?
Do the uim users usually need the m17n IMs as well?  Do the m17n users
prefer to access directly with scim-m17n, or though uim with scim-uim?
In my opinion, we really should only provide one way to access m17n IMs
in scim, if just to avoid confusion.  But which one?

2. In such a situation, since it's libuim pulling in libm17n, shouldn't
libuim-dev depends on libm17n-dev directly to avoid such problems?  I
read the policy, new maintainer's guide, and the library maintainer's
guide, but never really figured out the rule for development library
packages.  Could someone shed light on this?

So this is what I have found out.  I'll leave the decision to the
developers who use scim-uim and scim-m17n.  I believe a simple
libm17n-dev build-depends will solve the FTBFS bug, but haven't get
around to test yet (need to fix and update my development environment
first).  If nobody else does the test, I'll do it myself tomorrow
afternoon US time (UTC Saturday around 22:00), and provide a patch if it
works.

Regards,
Ming
2004.11.26